a lawyer and U.S. public official accused in 1948 of having acted as a Communist spy in the 1930s. Convicted in 1950 on counts of perjury related to the investigation, Hiss was sentenced to five years in prison but maintained his innocence until his death (b.1904--d.1996).

of, relating to, or designating the later of two geological periods of the Precambrian Era, from approximately 2.5 billion to 600 million years ago, when the first evidence of life appeared; Late Precambrian; Proterozoic. [4 definitions]